Oxbow says: To what extent did the indigenous population change their appearance and identity with the arrival of the Romans? Gillian Carr's revised thesis explores how we can detect shifts in modes of physical appearance and social identity by stuyding evidence from around 40 sites in Essex and Hertfordshire. Her study looks at artefacts traditionally symbolic of 'Romanisation', such as brooches, hairpins and other hair accoutrements, toilet instruments, and pigment and cosmetic pounders representing body tattooing and painting. Carr acknowledges that the link between artefacts and ethnicity or identity is somewhat problematic, especially with regard to differentiating between 'native' and Roman, although she does reach some interesting conclusions about the increased fluidity of identities in the late Iron Age, increased experimentation and attempts at social mobility through physical appearance.

Andras Bodor and the history of classical studies in Transylvania in the 20th century is the first comprehensive work focusing on the life of a classicist from Transylvania, presenting in detail the life and academic heritage of Andras Bodor (1915-1999). Based on 1348 newly identified letters, 209 photographs (including 25 portraits), Andras Bodor's complete bibliography and his unpublished memoir from 1915-1959, the work offers also the first publication of Bodor's academic correspondence (107 letters) and also extracts from his unpublished journal. Based on a large number of unpublished documents and the major works of Bodor, the book tries to reconstruct the life and academic heritage of a classicist from the periphery of Europe, a region that changed so many times over the long course of the 20th century. Andras Bodor appears as a student torn between theology and classical studies, a Transylvanian Hungarian who ended up at Oxford, a lecturer at the Hungarian University of Cluj, a researcher who had the idea of establishing a new school of classics, marginalised and compromising, a quiet teacher of the newly established Babes-Bolyai University and also a senior professor engaged in education policy. The personality and work of Bodor is presented through the short history of classics in Transylvania, Romania, reflecting on the European and global changes of the discipline.

Experiencing the Frontier and the Frontier of Experience deals with the Roman Empire's responses to the threats which were caused by the new geostrategic situation brought on by the crisis of the 3rd century AD, induced by the 'barbarians' who - often already part of Roman military structures as mercenaries and auxiliaries - became a veritable menace for the Empire. Rome adopted different strategies: they oscillated between inclusion, warfare and other means of exerting influence. The contributions to this volume explore the archaeological evidence for Roman practice and especially the varying strategies of power and influence in the central regions on the one hand, and the south-eastern parts of the European 'Barbaricum' on the other. They show how 'Divide et impera' functioned as practical policy based on alliances, as well as consequent warfare, and diplomatic initiatives, which are traceable by prestige-goods and subsidia treasures found in the Barbaricum. The comparison of Roman imports in different parts of Iron-Age Europe can help understand better a complex process of shifting power and influence in an emerging new Europe, which transformed the Empire towards medieval 'Herrschaft' and social structure.

The purpose of this work is to determine the most informative articles and the most effective methods and research approaches to the study of Roman brick stamps covering the former Roman Empire. The different research methods used in different areas are compared. This study attempts to give an overall view of research methods, approaches and categories of studies used in all schools of brick stamp research and poses the question whether brick stamps can contribute to our understanding of military history. Regional and local differences of both stamps and modern schools of research are highlighted and their importance in terms of Roman history is discussed. The author critically reviews a selection of articles, focusing primarily on the methodologies employed by certain scholars. The reviewed articles contain a selection of brick stamps. A catalogue of the works reviewed is included and the publications listed there form the background for this present analysis.

One of the most significant features in the suburbium of Roman cities throughout Italy were the villae suburbanae. Modern scholarship has undertaken a large amount of research into the residential properties and lifestyles of the Roman nobility, and the Roman villa has been a prime subject area in this regard. But villae suburbanae have only received limited detailed analysis from these scholars. To this end, this study examines both the literary and archaeological evidence relating to villae suburbanae in an effort to gain a better understanding of this type of residence. The first fundamental feature of this investigation is to understand these buildings within their social and geographical context. The second feature is the method employed to interpret the social aspects of villae suburbanae, which utilises statistical analysis to determine the percentage of space allocated for potential entertainment.

This collection of essays promises to make an important contribution to the field of Roman studies, particularly, by its concentration on monuments, to that of Roman art history. The current high level of interest in problems of identity, including studies of colonialism, Romanization, ethnicity, social class, gender and a host of related topics creates a vital intellectual context for the study of the art of provincials and the lower classes. The monuments themselves contribute a critical dimension to this discourse, the more so because the textual evidence for the non-elites of Roman society, apart from inscriptions, is relatively scarce.

This report publishes and analyses archaeological work undertaken at the Romano-British settlement at Wilderspool in Warrington from 1991-93. Settlement at the site began in the 1st century AD, and it seems from the start to have been associated with the military. There is considerable evidence of industrial activity, principally iron working and pottery. Such evidence is most plentiful at times of known military activity in the area, and the authors suggest that the settlement's main function was as supplier to the army. There is evidence of increased agricultural activity from the 3rd century when industries went into decline. The evidence from Wilderspool is supplemented with that from Holditch in Staffordshire, a sizeable Romano-British settlement which peaked in size and importance in the early 2nd century, and then quickly fell in disuse after 150, the result, the authors suggest of a northward shift in military stationing.

This study looks at the archaeological evidence for Roman campaigning in Britain under the Flavians (AD 69-96). It discusses the tribal and place names in Ptolemy's map and the Ravenna Cosmology and attempts to identify the areas referred to. Finally it uses this information alongside Tacitus' Agricola, finding a remarkable degree of convergence with the archaeological and geo-political evidence.

This monograph examines the deposition of precious metal artefacts in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods (from c. AD 200 to AD 700) within and beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire and its successor states. The primary foci of the study are the size, date range and spatial distribution of these finds, with less emphasis on specific aspects of artefacts themselves and the specific contexts in which individual deposits were found. The immense chronological and regional scope allows broad changes in deposition patterns to be presented and examined. And a variety of possible interpretations of these patterns are offered in the final chapter.

This volume contains a range of papers from a seminar held in Oxford in 2005. What did art in its widest sense mean to them, the Romans, and what might it (or even should it), mean to us? The approach adopted avoids fashionable theory, mainly culled second-hand from the social sciences, and tries to engage directly with material culture.

A Landscape of Conflict? Rural Fortifications in the Argolid (400-146 BC) is the first systematic study of Late Classical and Hellenistic rural fortifications in the territories of ancient Argos and the city-states of the Argolic Akte (northeastern Peloponnese). Based on one of the largest regional corpora of Greek fortified sites to date, the volume investigates the function of rural fortifications by placing them in the context of their surrounding landscape. This approach - combining 'traditional' methods of ancient history and landscape archaeology with GIS-based data analyses - helps to readdress the long-standing tension between 'military-strategic' and 'non-military' research agendas in Greek fortification studies, and highlights that Classical and Hellenistic rural fortifications are neither a priori fortified farmsteads nor parts of military-strategic networks of territorial defence. Instead, rural fortifications emerge in this monograph as multifunctional and multifaceted sites, which open a new window into different forms of 'formal' and 'informal' conflict in the ancient countryside and bear witness to a remarkable degree of local motivation and agency. The study thus demonstrates how ancient fortifications can provide an unexpected and so far much underappreciated opportunity for writing local or regional Greek histories - political and military as well as social and economic - from archaeological sources.

The horror of the puticuli, the mass burial pits, and their traditional association with the poor, has often led to this socio-economic group being viewed as somehow different to the rest of the ancient urban community in the Italy of the Late Roman Republic. This is the theory questioned by the author of this volume. Why should this part of the community care so little about the disposal of the dead when other members of society were devoting huge amounts of time and money to ensuring that the deceased received not only burial, but also lasting commemoration?

From about 2000 BCE onward, Egypt served as an important nexus for cultural exchange in the eastern Mediterranean, importing and exporting not just wares but also new artistic techniques and styles. Egyptian, Greek, and Roman craftsmen imitated one another's work, creating cultural and artistic hybrids that transcended a single tradition. Yet in spite of the remarkable artistic production that resulted from these interchanges, the complex vicissitudes of exchange between Egypt and the Classical world over the course of nearly 2500 years have not been comprehensively explored in a major exhibition or publication in the United States. It is precisely this aspect of Egypt's history, however, that Beyond the Nile uncovers. Renowned scholars have come together to provide compelling analyses of the constantly evolving dynamics of cultural exchange, first between Egyptians and Greeks-during the Bronze Age, then the Archaic and Classical periods of Greece, and finally Ptolemaic Egypt-and later when Egypt passed to Roman rule with the defeat of Cleopatra. Beyond the Nile is milestone publication on the occasion of a major international exhibition and one that will become an indispensable contribution to the field. With gorgeous photographs of more than two hundred rare objects, including frescoes, statues, obelisks, jewellery, papyri, pottery, and coins, this volume offers an essential and interdisciplinary approach to the rich world of artistic cross-pollination during antiquity.

This work presents systematic and objective examination of the large corpus of Hellenistic gold Eros jewellery. By focusing on the question of the interconnections between the major centres of production - Egypt, South Italy and South Russia, Western Asia Minor, Greece and Syria a number of regional schools and new jewellery groups are identified. The keys to the discussion are the well documented find contexts from Northern Greece, South Italy and Tel Atrib (Egypt) that make it possible to arrive at a relative chronology for a particular type of Eros, found throughout the Hellenistic world. The morphological, stylistic, iconographic and technical continuities between Hellenistic jewellery and in particular the Eros motif ensure the successful use of this methodology. Evidence from Koroni in Attica and from several South Italian tomb groups has been examined in detail and dated, according to the methodology described above to ca. 240 BC.

The collection of Roman inscribed stones and sculpture, together with other Roman objects found at Maryport in Cumbria, is the oldest archaeological collection in Britain still in private hands. Today, it is housed in the Senhouse Roman Museum on Sea Brows to the north of the modern town of Maryport. Beside the museum the earthworks of the Roman fort may still be seen, and beyond it, though not visible, lies a large civil settlement revealed through geophysical survey and the scene of two recent excavations. 'Maryport: A Roman Fort and its community' places the collection in context and describes the history of research at the site. Maryport, although at the north-western edge of the Roman Empire, provides material of international importance for our understanding of the Roman state.

This volume presents an analysis of the human remains found in the Middle Bronze Age cemetery of Sant' Abbdondio, Pompeii. More specifically, Mary Anne Tafuri applies ICP-MS trace element analysis to the human bone and teeth from the cemetery in an attempt to reconstruct the social dynamics of the group. Reconstructing dietary habits, assuming that people ate local resources, opens a window, not only on the Middle Bronze Age economy, but also on residence and mobiity. The methods of Tafuri's analysis are outlined in detail and the results are interpreted in terms of the relationships between people, resources and the environment at Sant' Abbdondio.

9 papers presented at a colloquium held in honour of J.J. Coulton at Lincoln College, Oxford on 17 April 2004, to mark his retirement from the Readership in Classical Archaeology at Merton College, Oxford. Jim Coulton devoted much of his early career to the study of Cycladic architecture. He saw earlier than most how important this area would be in advancing our knowledge not only of ancient architecture but also of many aspects of ancient Greek civilisation in general.

At the heart of this study of Roman pottery in Macedonian Greece is a catalogue of over 1,900 vessels from five sites in the area of: Amphipolis, Philppi, Kepia, Abdera and Thasos. Vaitsa Malamidou's aim is that the material should throw light on the internal and external cultural influences in north-eastern Greece', arguing that the evidence indicates that, during the Roman period, the influence on pottery was always from the east, with most of the important vessels imported from Asia Minor. The large amounts of local wares is also an indicator of regional prosperity. The catalogue is preceded by a discussion of Roman pottery studies in general and the historical evidence for Roman Macedonia and Thrace. There is also a discussion of methodology, the excavations and the archaeological provenance of the fine and coarse wares.

Vindonissa (Canton of Aargau, Switzerland) was an important Roman camp during the 1st century AD. The tiles are among the most common archaeological findings in the Vindonissa legionary camp, but commonly occur in different Roman sites of Switzerland. The principal aim of this study was the petrographic and chemical characterisation of the Vindonissa tiles to determine the production site (or sites) for these ceramics and to obtain information concerning the technological aspects of the tile production and the distribution of these stamped tiles in Switzerland in Roman times. Abstracts in French and German.

This volume sets out to prove that, far from being simply assimilated or subsumed into Roman religion, Gallic rites continued, and continued to be the basis of Gallo-Roman religion. In each chapter, the number of these Gallic beliefs and customs, which continued after the Roman Conquest, is examined and it is demonstrated that Gallic religion was not abandoned, that the Celtic sanctuary design was the basis for Gallo-Roman temple design and that Gallo-Roman religion continued to be Gallic as well as Roman.

Despite the developing emphasis in current scholarship on children in Roman culture, there has been relatively little research to date on the role and significance of the youngest children within the family and in society. This volume singles out this youngest age group, the under one-year-olds, in the first comprehensive study of infancy and earliest childhood to encompass the Roman Empire as a whole: integrating social and cultural history with archaeological evidence, funerary remains, material culture, and the iconography of infancy, it explores how the very particular historical circumstances into which Roman children were born affected their lives as well as prevailing attitudes towards them. Examination of these varied strands of evidence, drawn from throughout the Roman world from the fourth century BC to the third century AD, allows the rhetoric about earliest childhood in Roman texts to be more broadly contextualized and reveals the socio-cultural developments that took place in parent-child relationships over this period. Presenting a fresh perspective on archaeological and historical debates, the volume refutes the notion that high infant mortality conditioned Roman parents not to engage in the early life of their children or to view them, or their deaths, with indifference, and concludes that even within the first weeks and months of life Roman children were invested with social and gendered identities and were perceived as having both personhood and value within society.

The positioning of the legions of the Imperial Roman army provides a window into both the thinking and the course of events during the period from 30 B.C. to 300 A.D. When one can identify the locations and date the redeployments of the legions, it is possible to recreate the planning that caused the army to be so placed. Redeployments, of necessity, shows a major shift of events or a significant refocussing of the strategic thinking of the then ruling emperor at that particular moment. This book starts from the assumption that a legion's headquarters remained at a base until that legion was permanently posted to another base. A legion might temporarily serve in another province, even for more than a year, perhaps with its eagle present, but know that it would return to its permanent base. At any moment in time, a legion might have detachments serving in a variety of locations.

Oxbow says: In 1999 excavations were held at Grange Park, Courteenhall in Northamptonshire by Birmingham University Archaeology Unit in advance of the re-development of the site. The project aimed to investigate the date and function of the various sites and features revealed, as well as the social organisation and economy of the site, from the first major occupation of the site in the middle Iron Age, to the early-middle Saxon period. This volume reports on the findings from the initial desk-based research, survey work, fieldwalking and test-pitting, and most especailly from the excavations carried out at the site. Reports on the pottery, including large quantities of Iron Age and Roman ceramics, metal, stone and clay finds, and on the envionment, people and economy, are included.

This is a wide-ranging study of the southern English county of Wiltshire in the Roman and early medieval periods (c. 100-1100 AD), focusing on the key themes of landscape, settlement and society and using a combination of archaeological, topographical and historical evidence. Particular emphasis is given to place-names, which, it is argued, can help us to locate Romano-British settlements and inform us about the British survival in the post-Roman period. Early chapters tackle the transition between the Roman and Early Saxon periods, challenging current theories on the decline of Roman Britain and the Anglo-Saxon adventus. Subsequent chapters examine the evidence for early medieval territorial and ecclesiastical structure in Wiltshire, in addition to the Anglo-Saxon farming landscape. There is also detailed consideration of the origins of the medieval settlement pattern and a discussion of the relationship between settlements and the ranks of Anglo-Saxon society.